Minimum Support Price, Agrarian Issues and Farmers’ Movement in India
| Published date | 01 December 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00195561241276897 |
| Author | Manish Kumar |
| Date | 01 December 2024 |
Minimum Support
Price, Agrarian Issues
and Farmers’ Movement
in India
Manish Kumar1
Abstract
Minimum Support Price (MSP) is one of the many important aspects related to
agricultural development. Farmers have been demanding MSP for decades, but the
demand for legalisation of MSP has been raised prominently by the contemporary
farmers movement. On the one hand, farmers had been engaging in protests in
Tikri, Singhu (Delhi–Haryana border) and Ghazipur (Delhi–UP border) throughout
the year (2020–2021) for legalisation of the MSP. On the other hand, the govern-
ment is in favour of neoliberal policy and saw the MSP as an agro-ecological and
financial risk. This article uses quantitative and qualitative methods to establish a
relationship between MSP, agrarian issues and the farmers movement in India. The
result shows that the MSP policy has had a very negative impact on agro-ecology
and groundwater conditions in Punjab, Haryana and Western UP.
Keywords
Minimum support price, new-farmers movement, agriculture development, agro-
ecology, crop diversity, rice crop
Introduction
The issue of agriculture-price policy was at the centre of the new-farmers move-
ment1 in India in the early 1980s. Even at present, the agricultural-price policy is
included as an important aspect in the centre of the contemporary farmers’ move-
ment, which lasted for a year in North India (Punjab, Western Uttar Pradesh and
Haryana) (Suthar & Kumar, 2022). The farmers and farmers’ organisations were
agitating for the legalisation of minimum support price (MSP). For the last decade
in India, farmers, the government, agricultural economists, farmers’ unions and the
opposition leaders have been depicting dierent views regarding the MSP. On the
Article
Indian Journal of Public
Administration
70(4) 801–816, 2024
© 2024 IIPA
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/00195561241276897
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1 Shyam Lal College, University of Delhi, India
Corresponding author:
Manish Kumar, Shyam Lal College, University of Delhi, Delhi 110032, India.
E-mail: manishdu1122@gmail.com
802 Indian Journal of Public Administration 70(4)
one hand, farmers associate MSP with their livelihood and existence, on the other
hand, some agricultural scientists and economists consider MSP in the context of
Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh (West), a form of environmental crisis in the
agro-ecology system. MSP came into existence in 1965 in the form of agriculture-
price policy as a result of the suggestion of the L. K. Jha Committee. However, by
the 1980s, pressure was put on the government by various farmers’ organisations to
change the method of xing the MSP and its structure. Shetkari Sangathan and other
farmers’ organisations, through agitations, had put forth their demands before the
Central government. From time to time, the central government also constituted
some committees such as the Sen Committee (1980), Hanumantha Rao Committee
(1990), Y. K. Alagh Committee (2005), M. S. Swaminathan Committee (2004) and
the Ramesh Chand Committee (2013),2 which exposed the reality of MSP. The
Shanta Kumar Committee (2015) stated in its report that only 6% of the farmers
were able to benet from MSP, and a majority of such farmers were from Haryana
and Punjab. The suggestions of the M. S. Swaminathan Committee (2004) led to
debates on questions concerning not only agricultural growth but also the develop-
ment of the farmers. The M. S. Swaminathan Committee suggested framing of an
agricultural policy that would prioritise the upliftment and development of farmers.
The committee emphasised on a policy that would be ‘farmer-welfare-centric’. It
also recommended measures that would lead to an increase in the income of the
farmers. For this, the M. S. Swaminathan Committee gave a new formula related to
MSP along with other important suggestions, which are discussed below. In the last
few years, India has been exporting non-basmati rice to China and other African
countries. There has been a tremendous increase in the production of rice in the last
few decades. In 1950–1951, 20.58 million tonnes of rice was produced, whereas in
2014–2015, 104.86 million tonnes of rice was produced (Agriculture Statistics at
Glance, 2015). Yet the annual income of a farmer is only `6,491 at present (NSS,
July 2012–June 2013; Ranganathan, 2015). This fact suces to show that there is
not much synergy between the increase in agricultural production and the increase
in the standard of living of the farmers. Since 2005, there has been a big change in
the public policy related to the agriculture sector in India. The M. S. Swaminathan
Committee also made many important suggestions regarding the much-needed
increase of investment in agriculture by the government, providing credit facilities
for farmers and MSP. Therefore, after the formation of the M. S. Swaminathan
Committee, there was a wide discussion on the politics and policy of farmers’ devel-
opment at the national and state levels, and pressure was placed on the governments
to formulate a policy to improve the socio-economic condition of the Indian farmers.
This article intends to understand how the politics and policy of MSP in India
have been leading to a harmful impact on agro-ecology and crop diversity; sec-
ondly, it analyses how the new-farmers’ and contemporary farmers’ movements
raised the issue of MSP at the national level.
Methodology
The research article is based on secondary and primary data analysis. Various gov-
ernment reports, such as L. K. Jha Committee (1965), Sen Committee (1980),
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